Tell Me
by Kyuunen
Summary: Quistis Trepe is searching for truth, driven by inner memories. This is all good and well, but what does that have do do with Ellone? And why has Quistis joined a cult?
1. Prologue

Prologue  
  
"It's all because of that damned Esthar and their sorceress!" The pale man slammed his fist onto the table.  
  
"Honey, please. You'll wake the child. I don't like this war any more than you do, but what's the use of pointing fingers?" The blonde woman chastised her husband, looking expectantly at the door of their little girl's room, waiting for the sound of her waking. He opened his mouth, but she merely held a finger to his lips to silence him.  
  
The two had been married for only a short while. About four or five years. The man was a pale, gaunt brown-haired, green-eyed subject. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed in the looks department, but he definitely was sharp as hell. His intelligence had got him and his family out of many a scrape but it could be dampened by his stubborness. The woman was a striking blonde when she wanted to be and even now with a war going on, she still kept her natural beauty.  
  
The two were formerly from Deling City. But then the war struck. Deling City became readily fit for war, but unspeakable as a home. The two had been moving from place to place. There were always places to go to for shelter. Since this the beginning of this 'Sorceress War' as it was now popularly being called, enclaves of refugees dotted the Galbadian continent. These were permissible for a day or two, but to raise their family they needed a real house. Not a tent or a shabby lean-to. Or at least a real room. They had found a shack on the outskirts of a logging town called Timber.  
  
They had been able to base themselves and their childsafely here for two months. But in war, tranquility never lasts too long. They knew it too well, and they would soon get a reminder.  
  
"Hey Mister! Mister!" A sudden gruff yell and sharp banging from the other side of the front door raised alarm in the couple's minds. The man unbolted the door to see a young man, much like himself. This other man wore a ratty green overcoat.  
  
"What's wrong? Is it Esthar?" The woman asked, frantically. She raised a hand to her mouth as she heard blasts from the further end of the town. Her question had been answered.  
  
"We've got to get out of here!" The woman's husband exclaimed. "Get the kid," he ordered his wife. She nodded, hurrying into the child's bedroom. The brown-haired man went outside to start the car. He closed the door of his vehicle when the messenger approached his window.  
  
"Before you go," said the man in the trenchcoat, "I have something for you!" The messenger pulled a pistol out of his trenchcoat and before the blink of an eye, blood was splattered on the windshield. "Heh, poor bastard never knew it was coming." He took a box of matches from his pocket and ripped out as many as he could at once. In short, the car and its owner became nothing more than a blazing bonfire in less than five minutes. He placed the gun back into his trenchcoat slowly, rubbing the emblem on the weapon's barrel. It was the emblem of Esthar.  
  
As the fire roared, the murderer entered the shack. The woman emerged from the children's room with a bag in one arm and a tiny blonde-haired girl clutching to her other. The man in the trenchcoat enter the room with a dangerous grin plastered on his face. The young girl smelled something strange in the air, but she couldn't figure out what it was. But her mother knew it: burning flesh. She pieced two and two together. She was ready to die.  
  
The blonde set her child on the grass, an innocent girl and told her to shut her eyes. But the girl wanted to see. She saw it all. She watched as her mother dragged her feet to the unfamiliar man.  
  
"Please. Do it quick." She requested, with only a hint of fear in her voice. She clenched her teeth and screwed her eyes shut. But no blast came.  
  
"You're not worth the time." The man scoffed. He turned his back on her and she sighed a breath of relief. "But then again..." he fired a shot at her over his back. Her eyes were frozen open in surprise. She dropped first to her knees and then her head landed on the ground. He hadn't missed.  
  
All the while the woman's daughter stood there, mouth open in a silent scream. Her feet were frozen to the ground and she couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She couldn't make a sound. Why did that man hert her mommy? Why didn't she get up? Why?  
  
The man spit to the side before taking his leave. He faded into the forest. The girl struggled to run to her mother. She fell onto her knees beside her.  
  
"Mommy? Are yoo okay?" The girl choked out. The woman groaned in reply. The child began to bawl; she howled as loud as she could. What else was there to do? She didn't even notice her mother turn over onto her back.  
  
"Honey, please don't cry," the woman grunted. The girl sniffed and stopped her screams. "Let me tell you a story."  
  
"Story?" the girl wimpered.  
  
"Yes." The woman reached out to stroke her daughter's hair. "About Hyne."  
  
"Hyne?"  
  
"Hyne created this world. She made people with her magic. And then she created all the animals and plants." She let out a big sigh. Her breaths became more labored. "But even before Hyne there were greater things. Like Fate, and Happiness."  
  
"And Love?" The girl murmured.  
  
"Yes. That too. But there was one thing that was so powerful that Hyne became jealous. It was Truth. Do you know what Truth is, honey?"  
  
"I know, mommy."  
  
"That's good. Many things were under her control, but not Truth. So she decided to steal Truth from the world. The only bit left what we humans were able to hide."  
  
"But - but then how do we know no one is lying?" The girl hiccuped, clutching her mother's side.  
  
"We don't know. That's what makes us so weak. Humans. We need truth, if only a little. We have nothing without Truth." The woman's breaths became shorter and more labored. She put a hand to her chest, where the bullet had hit her.  
  
"Where is it, mommy?" The girl sobbed.  
  
The woman clenched her eyes shut from the pain in her chest, not from the bullet, but from the thought of leaving her daughter. "No one knows." Her body started to feel numb from the loss of blood.  
  
"Truth!" The girl yelled. "I'll find it for yoo, mommy! I'll take it back! I promise!" The girl sobbed.  
  
"Find it. And give it back to the ones who needed it the most. Us." The child began to weep bitter tears. But her mother knew she could do nothing but tell her daughter. She had to tell her daughter -  
  
"Goodbye, Quisty. Goodbye."  
  
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Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Final Fantasy VIII or any part of SquareSoft. But a man can dream can't he?  
  
A/N: Thanks for reading this! I hope to turn this into a series, though I may need some suggestions. Feel free to review and write any comments and email me at mangaguy@asianavenue.com. This fic is quite tragic compared to the lighthearted stuff I wrote before, but I hope you liked it! 


	2. Chapter One: Normalcy

AN: Huzzah! I'm actually updating an abandoned series! Well, I hope you readers aren't too jarred by my old writing in the prologue and my new writing in this chapter. Anyway, I decided I would try to find a way to finish all my abandoned stories and salvage them, so here you go. I made up a plot, which I believe won't be too hard to stick to and I think I'll have a lot of fun. Hope you guys have fun reading along, although this first chapter isn't really plot-heavy.

* * *

**Tell Me** _by KyuuketsukiShounen_

Chapter One: Normalcy

"Quistis! A cult?"

"Excuse me, but it is most certainly not a cult. It's more a community of believers."

A familiar blond teen stood before her peers, dressed to the nines in rather elaborate costuming. Said peers, both dressed in their normal fighting garb, could only gawk at her with enlarged eyes and repeated prodding at the odd amulets and tassels of her robes. Quistis Trepe, SeeD's record breaker and all-around Golden Child, had in fact shocked those around her by joining a cult. Or rather, by joining 'a community of believers.' A community of believers that acted suspiciously like a cult.

The three were at present at the entrance of a religious compound, akin to a prison, albeit an extremely beautiful prison. It was composed of several buildings fit for different purposes such as personal quarters or the main chapel, but all were enclosed around a colossal quadrangle, which was in turn surrounded by an extremely ornate, wrought-iron fence. The plants and trees within the compound seemed just as abundant as outside the compound in the forest, however the walls and fences provided comfortable safety.

"Look, I know it may seem strange and irrational, but I'm asking that you guys just support me in this."

"But Quistis," Rinoa broke out, "how will we know if you're okay? What if you get hurt?" Seeing that her pleas were only being deflected off Quistis' iron resolve, she turned to Squall. "Squall, stop her!"

The youth in question merely stepped toward Quistis and advised her, "Remember, Quistis, no matter what you become, you will always be a SeeD. I can't order you around, even if I think you're making a bad decision, but make use of your training and stay out of trouble."

Quistis nodded in compliance. "Yes, Commander," she replied, with a half-sarcastic, half-heartfelt SeeD salute.

"Quistis," Squall said, his voice dire and halting. "I'm asking you take care of yourself, not as your Commander, but as a friend."

This unabashed display of feeling sobered Quistis a bit and she nodded again, this time without playfulness in her. She met Squall's eyes, reading his concern for her in the stormy grey, and answered with as much assurance as she could, "Don't worry about me, Squall." The piercing blue eyes then turned to Rinoa. "Rinoa, can I ask you a favor? Can you please tell the others and try to make them understand?"

Rinoa began to nod, slowly, but soon annulled her agreement by shaking her head furiously. "I can't do that, Quistis, when I don't even understand it myself!"

Quistis nodded, eyes closed. "I suppose it's strange to grasp if you don't really know what happened."

"That's just it!" Rinoa exclaimed. "We don't know at all what happened to you in the last few days."

"It's a bit long, and some of the time I'm not really sure whether I was dreaming or not," said Quistis, testing out the temperature.

"Go on," Squall urged, and that was that.

"Well," Quistis began, leading Squall and Rinoa into a quiet corner of the compound, "it all started when Cid called me up to his office one day."

* * *

"I was nervous all at once when I heard my name over the PA System. 'Quistis Trepe,' it blared, after giving its little chime, 'please report to the Headmaster in the bridge.' What was I to expect? The last time I got called up, almost two years ago -right before we launched our attack on Galbadia Garden-, he summarily told me that I, along with my other comrades, were on direct orders to save the world. Not exactly the most thrilling thing to hear outside of my personal daydreams.

"I found myself pacing back and forth in front of his door, wondering whether I should just go back into the elevator and pretend I never heard the summons at all. But I knew it would only be a temporary escape. I wouldn't be able to hide from Cid in his own Garden. So I sucked in all the air that would come into my lungs and held it in as I opened the door. The first thing I noticed was that his office was a complete mess and that Xu and I would be spending at least a few hours picking through it. And then, I noticed Cid, good old, abandon-your-students-and-staff-at-a-crucial-life-and-death-moment Cid. And the man had the nerve to smile.

"'Quistis,' he said, welcoming me like a fly to the web, 'it's been a long time since you or the others have been up here.'

"His voice was so calm and I was so anxious. I just wanted to strangle him. I didn't see how he could be nonchalant about anything at all when he very nearly witnessed the collapse of all existence. But he was. And so I dove straight to the point.

"'Yes, Headmaster, it's nice to see you but please tell me what the hell is going on.' I apparently wasn't on the level for pleasantries. At first, he seemed a little bit shocked at my forwardness, but I think he understood.

"'Oh, Quistis,' he said in that fatherly voice, the one that makes you wish you had someone to teach you how to ride a bike instead of having to learn by yourself, or to give you a piggy back ride instead of having to walk every step of ten miles. 'Don't worry.' I started to calm down then. 'No more saving the world for you.' And then I stopped holding my breath and felt a little better.

"Needless to say, the world had gone through absolute pandemonium and shock after the sorceress incidents and now, a little less than a year since we emerged from compression, was it starting to settle back to normal. The world was still full of its problems; political and domestic, moral and judicial. So Cid had scouted out some people, mostly government bigwigs and whatnot, who would have some need of a mercenary force. Basically, Cid was trying to get some easy missions scored to get Garden back on a track of normalcy. The mission was all about getting back to good ol' normalcy.

"'If we were to get the role models out doing missions, maybe we would start getting back students and setting our academy straight,' he explained.

"And of course, even though I was burning inside, I said 'Okay,' and nodded my head like a good little zombie girl. So the next morning, I went through the routine of prepping for a mission. It was strange, the way it felt so familiar and yet so distant. It was like watching ancient movies, film sullied by time but the images still vivid enough to break your heart. I collected everything into my pack, coiled my whip in hand, and went to the docking bay where the Ragnarok and little Selphie lay in wait to take me out to Esthar."

Rinoa interrupted, the nation's name nudging at old scars. "Esthar? Why there?"

Now Squall chimed in as well. "I remember seeing a file. Civilians were complaining about monsters."

"That's right. The Lunar Cry had upped the monster count by a hefty percentage," Quistis proceeded, "but most people were already used to that, so I was to find out the problem and eliminate it.

"Selphie quickly piloted me to the northern part of the country, away from the more welcoming metropolis, across the Great Plains to the towns bordering the forested cliffs. When I left the ship, some locals were quick to point me in the direction of the monsters. Esthar was still Esthar, and these people were unchanged. Xenophobic as ever, they labeled me as an outsider.

"They told me the problems were occurring on the cliffs to the north of the town and I set out. It was not yet noon when I started climbing up the steep rocks. I continued up until about sunset without any incident, except for finding these strange crystals I took some samples of.

"Before dusk, I decided to fully recover my strength and found myself a nice deep cave. No sooner had I climbed into it and laid down to rest when I realized I had made a novice's mistake. I had climbed into a cave, without checking for inhabitants, during a mission concerning monster attacks. I could hear something approaching.

"Back when I received my mission briefing, Cid told me, 'Don't worry about it. These are civilians registering these complaints. I'm sure the monsters are no worse than Bite Bugs or Gizzards.' Lying old bastard, the cave was home to a Malboro!"

Rinoa scoffed quietly. "Cid can be just as bad as _that man_ sometimes."

Quistis, not one to take sides in this ongoing battle-grudge-war, decided to just continue. "And of course, in that worst possible moment, my head suddenly feels heavy and light at the same time, my limbs start to freeze up and loose feeling, and the ringing in my ears is enough to drive me insane. It took me a while to realize it was Ellone. Oh, she was just as annoying as ever, never knowing when or how to use her flashback powers in a polite fashion."

Squall and Rinoa gave each other a startled glance, but Quistis missed it.

Quistis went on, fondly bashing her elder childhood friend. "I can imagine her sitting somewhere in that garish outfit of hers. I think I'll slap her the next time I see her," Quistis joked. "In fact, I think I'll call her right now and tell her what I thought when she sent me back," she decided. She plunged into her pack for a SeeD administered phone. "Never really learned how to use these," she muttered as she tried dialing the number. "Life wasn't so complicated when Adel was blocking out communications." But before the call could connect, Rinoa raised her hand gently to Quistis' and slowly brought the phone down to Quistis lap.

"Um, Quistis," Rinoa started off awkwardly, "we didn't want to tell you this right away." Quistis' eyes immediately widened, the blue seeming to flicker in dread. "But something happened to Ellone." Quistis kept her mouth shut, waiting for the impact.

"You can't have been sent back by her," Squall commented, monotone, apparently trying to shut off feeling. "She couldn't have done it."

"Honey," Rinoa said quietly, "Ellone is in a coma. She's slipping fast. The doctors don't think she'll live."

And in Quistis' heart, she felt a great deal of pushing and pulling and swelling and exhaustion all at once and she put her head into her hands, eyes still wide in shock.

The universe was ripe for the imploding.

* * *

AN: Erm... hope it wasn't painful for you guys! I kind of pulled an Interview with the Vampire thing with Quistis' story, and hopefully you didn't hate it because I'll be finishing up Quistis' story pretty much all of the next chapter. I guess I'm too used to writing first-person now. Ah, well. Please review. Though it's not necessary, I'm sure other authors can relate that it's nice to know if people are reading your fanfics. 


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